Google, Motorola Mobility Review Temporarily Halted by EU

Google plans to use Motorola's patents to protect supporters of its Android software and move into the hardware business. Photographer: Tim Boyle/Bloomberg

Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- European Union regulators suspended
their antitrust review of plans by Google Inc., the biggest
maker of smartphone software, to buy Motorola Mobility Holdings
Inc. after requesting more information about the deal.

The antitrust authority will continue the review after it
has obtained “certain documents that are essential to its
evaluation of the transaction,” said Amelia Torres, a
spokeswoman for the Brussels-based European Commission. The
commission temporarily stopped the review on Dec. 6, according
to a filing on the regulator’s website today.

Regulatory reviews mean the purchase by Google is likely to
close in 2012, Motorola Mobility said last month. Google plans
to use Motorola Mobility’s more than 17,000 patents to protect
supporters of its Android software in licensing and legal
disputes with rivals such as Apple Inc. -- and also move into
the hardware business.

The EU’s request for more information is “routine,” said
Al Verney, a spokesman for Google in Brussels.

“We’re confident the commission will conclude that this
acquisition is good for competition and we’ll be working closely
and cooperatively with them as they continue their review,”
Verney said in an e-mail.